HOLLAND, Mich. - A meeting was held on Tuesday night for parents who have kids that attend the Holland Community Aquatic Center.
The meeting was triggered by the April 4 arrest of the head coach of Michigan Lakeshore Aquatics, Troy Emmons, 53.
Emmons was charged with incident exposure in the pool area of a hotel in Douglas.
"I'm going to tell you that Troy was a friend of mine," center director Jack Huisingh told the group. "And it's tough to stand up here and talk about this situation."
Huisingh said that on April 6 he received an email from Emmons stating that he would be resigning. In the email, Emmons wrote that he had made a bad decision that will haunt him forever, Huisingh said.
Emmons was arrested after Douglas police were called to the AmericInn when a staff member alleged that Emmons had exposed himself. He was charged with indecent exposure.
"This is kind of a horrible bump in the road, but unfortunately, that happens," said Huisingh.
It has been that determined no staff or athletes were present during the alleged incident at the hotel, Huisingh said, and children under Emmons' supervision were never in harm’s way.
"We are all fallible and a mistake was made," said Huisingh. "Troy owned up to that, and we as an organization accepted that, and now we are going to move on."
The organization has already assigned a new head coach and reassured parents that the group will bounce back from the incident.
"We are a growing team, and we are a new team, and we need to communicate well" said Huisingh, "so we just talked to the parents tonight about how we want to do that."
